


Over the Horizon

by i_am_still_bb



Series: Gathering FiKi - Drabble Challenges (2019 & 2020) [10]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-02-08 09:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21473704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_am_still_bb/pseuds/i_am_still_bb
Summary: Written for Gathering FiKi's Drabble Challenge #2--Prompt: Vikings AU--Thorin and Co. leave on a journey that Fili does not approve of.
Relationships: Fíli & Kíli (Tolkien), Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: Gathering FiKi - Drabble Challenges (2019 & 2020) [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1485650
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

Fili frowns as he looked down to the harbor. Thorin was preparing his special boat to go off on his fools errand. Thorin had spent weeks, months hiding away with Gandalf working on the ridiculous thing. Fili had been sure that it would not float, but there it was, sitting next to his own fishing boat.

He turns away quickly, his long braids flying, and marches back up the hill and away from his uncle’s horrible boat. The stupid boat was all that Kili could talk about. It was all that anyone could talk about. And it seemed that almost everyone was excited.

Fili opens with door of his mother’s house with such force that it slams into the wall. Dis does not scold him, rather she takes note of his dark and stormy expression. “Were you looking at Thorin’s boat again?”

Fili scowls and drops onto a pile of furs. “You should forbid him to go?”

“Thorin?” Dis laughs. “I’d have better luck telling winter to stay away this year. He’s been obsessed with the idea of sailing west ever since our father and grandfather did it.”

“No. Not Thorin. Kili.”

“Is that what is bothering you?” Dis asks. “That Kili will leave?”

“Neither Thrain nor Thror ever came back.”

Dis nods and looks at her eldest child. “I know, but your brother is a man—“

“He’s not,” Fili interrupts. “He’s still a boy. He still sleeps with that stuffed moose that he was given as a child.”

Dis pauses, but does not respond to Fili’s outburst. “He’s a man and I have to let him make his own decisions.”

* * *

The next morning Fili stands on the dock scowling. “You should stay here,” he tells Kili who has gleefully jumped aboard the ship ready to sail and find dragons, and goddesses, and all manner of adventures. He was now sitting on the railing with his feet dangling over the side.

“I don’t want to. This is an adventure, Fi! Aren’t you tired of fishing and minding the sheep day after day?” Kili’s smile is broad and the wind whips his hair across his face.

Fili reaches out and tucks the errant strands behind Kili’s ear. “What if you don’t come back?”

“There’s no proof that grandfather died. Maybe they found a place so wonderful that they did not want to leave!” Kili says excited, his eyes wide at the possibility.

Fili frowns and looks away. “What about you? If you found that place would you wish to never return.”

“Well, I’d have to come back for you,” Kili says simply. “I would want to share it with you. That’s why I wish you would come rather than staying behind.”

Dwalin approaches the pair. “We’re going to lose the tide if we don’t leave now.”

Kili nods and turns back to Fili. “I guess this is goodbye, then.” Kili proffers his hand.

Fili ignores the offered hand and yanks his brother from the railing and pulls him into a bone crushing hug. He buries his face in Kili’s long unbound hair.

“Fili,” Kili says softly. “I’ll come back. You’ll see. And I’ll have the most marvelous stories to tell you.” His tone is lighthearted, but his hug is just as desperate.

Kili climbs aboard the ship and the brother’s watch each other as they get smaller and smaller. Fili raises his hand in farewell as his brother disappears over the horizon.


	2. Impossible Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for Gathering Fiki's Drabble Challenge #3  
\--  
Prompt: Impossible odds

Fili had watched the line where sea met sky for days. He had hoped for a storm that would turn them back. He had hoped that Thorin would change his mind. He had hoped the Kili would beg to come home.

But the horizon stayed empty.

And days passed.

Fili still watched the harbor with half an eye most of the time at the beginning, but life had taken over. The sheep needed tending. Then lambing season was upon them and Fili barely had time to think before collapsed into his bed.

Two years after Thorin’s ship set sail the barley crop failed. It was a hard winter. Many died.

Five years after the bells were rung in warning as sleek, dangerous ships slid over the horizon. They had barely survived. And many who did left in search of a better place. Fili never walked without a limp after that.

But Fili stayed. He could not imagine leaving. If Kili ever came back he would come here. And this is where all his memories of his brother were. That was the pine where they would climb so high that their mother shouted at them to get down. This was the dock where they would launch themselves into the cold water to swim in the natural harbor.

Gray appeared in his mother's hair and his own beard thickened. But there was still no word. Still there was no sign of the tall, proud ship with its bright sails.

Fili did not look up from the fire as he roughly massaged his bad calf. “Do you think they’ll ever come back?” He spoke so softly that he was not sure if his mother could hear him over the crackle of the fire and the click of her knitting needles.

“I don’t know.” Her words were equally quiet. “But if anyone was going to overcome impossible odds it would be Thorin and Kili.”

Fili nodded.

He was folding his fishing nets on the dock when he looked up to the horizon; scanning the ship with its dragon prow out of habit rather than any real conviction. He stopped when he saw the lone ship with a faded and tattered sail. It is close enough that he cannot believe that he missed it before this. He paused in his work. There were no more warning bells to bring people from their homes.

Then he saw it. The golden eyes of the dragon prow. A ship he had not seen in eleven years.

“Amad…” he whispered. He swallowed and forced himself to shout.

His mother moved slower than she did when the ship left, but she is at his side without him realizing that any time had passed. She saw it too.

She squeezed his hand.

As the ship drew close to the dock Fili could not force his feet to move. He was frozen to the spot. Among the crew he saw some he recognized and some he didn’t. But no Kili. He gripped a post of the dock—the same ones that they would hop from one to the other on—and waited.

Then he saw him. He would swear the Kili had grown. His hair was longer, a scrap of a beard graced his chin, but his smile—achingly beautiful—was the same when he saw Fili standing there.

Fili’s knees gave way and Kili was on his knees before him in an instant.

“You’re…” he choked out reaching for Kili’s cheek.

Kili cupped Fili’s hand to his cheek with his own hand. “I’m alive.”

Fili bit his lips; fighting back the tremble that he could feel starting in his chest and raised his other hand to Kili’s other cheek. He traced the scar that ran down Kili’s cheek, disappearing into his short beard, with his thumb.

Fili’s exhaled breath is broken, shattered and Kili’s eyes were full of tears despite his smile.

Fili dragged his brother in and pressed their foreheads together.

“Gods, I missed you,” Fili breathed. “I…” He could not continue.

“I should not have gone without you. It was an impossible mission. And every time I saw something I wanted to share it with you, but you weren’t there,” Kili’s words came out in a rush. His eyes squeezed shut; tears streaking their way through the dried salt on his skin. “I’m sorry.”

Fili shook his head. “Don’t. I love you. You’re back. That’s all that matters.”

Kili tangled his fingers in Fili’s tunic and hair and pulled him into a tight hug that could last an eternity.


End file.
